


very little trace

by princegrantaire



Series: a world with love [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), Identity Crisis (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mindwiping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 20:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20802464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: Bruce knows Zatanna's got an upcoming show in Gotham and can’t, in all honesty, say why he’d evaded her after the meeting, that special brand of desperation he often reserves for death-defying acts alone clawing up his throat.Afteris when the pieces had started falling in -- or out -- of place.(Years after the events of Identity Crisis, Bruce finds it himself to talk about what had transpired then.)





	very little trace

**Author's Note:**

> anyone still remember identity crisis? the seven issue miniseries that shook the very foundation of the dc universe as we know it? yeah, i haven't been able to stop thinking about it for MONTHS! any story in which bruce is a victim is, of course, immediately lethal to me AND must simply be addressed in a heart-to-heart with everyone's favourite clown. see, i kept thinking: who, if anyone at all, in bruce's life could understand the visceral nightmare of having all ur memories taken from u? why, JOKER, of course! so, this happened. vaguely similar to my sanctuary fic, maybe, and definitely set in the same universe
> 
> the events pictured here went along the same lines as canon, minus hal jordan's involvement. in a post-parallax and post-everything hal's been through world, there's no way he would've 1) been on board with this 2) kept the secret for so long. the rest remains mostly the same (with the usual changes in this universe)
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> PS: if you haven't read identity crisis but would still like to read this fic i would definitely recommend checking the wiki summary at the very least, the comic's wonderful but you mostly just need to know the act itself/context

Joker’s snoring softly. A nose broken one too many times will do that to you. He’s sleeping though, curled up tightly onto himself, his back pressed against Bruce’s, shirt riding up just above his waistband, a sliver of ghost-white skin revealed in the moonlight. Bruce can’t see that now, of course. Throughout tonight’s routine of tossing and turning, the image had sort of stuck around. It’s as calm as Joker ever gets.

That’s a nice, grounding thought. Bruce smiles, soft and private, the kind of thing he’s always kept for himself. Usually -- a _usual _that’s bordering on three years now -- it's the other way around. He passes out right after patrol, bone-tired and aching, and Joker wanders the halls.

Bruce would love to wander the manor’s halls, just now. In fact, he’d _love _to be right back in the heart of Gotham, all smog and grime and screams and never-ending sirens.

Sometimes, _just _sometimes, Bruce can’t believe he hadn’t quite understood Joker’s final verdict on the manor, reached after a disastrous first week and never quite redacted. _Too quiet_. Yeah, Bruce can see it now. This morning’s Justice League meeting plays on a loop. He’d like it to stop. Insomnia’s rare enough these days, what with the not-so-warm body next to him, that the meds in the bathroom cabinet have mostly remained untouched.

He could get them now. It’s an en-suite bathroom, same like every other bedroom’s got. Bruce could get up, walk a couple of steps, take the pills and give in to the blissful haze of sleep. He doesn’t _want _a haze.

“Stop moving.”

“I’m not mov-- _Oh_.” Bruce rolls over, finds a very sleep-mussed Joker staring at him. “I’m sorry I woke you up,” he adds, sheepish.

“Well, you should be,” Joker mumbles but he cracks a smile, reaching out to brush Bruce’s hair off his forehead. He’s close and more real than the night’s made him seem so far. “Why’re you up?”

“Just-- thinking, I guess. You should sleep, Joker, seriously, you’ve been up for days and--”

“And a couple more hours ain’t gonna kill me,” he finishes for Bruce, somewhere on that ever-sliding scale of fondness and concern. Certain words, he’s noticed, make Joker’s Gotham accent _really _jump out, the Narrows through and through. There’s a private joy in hearing that, too. 

Here’s the thing, though. For the past twelve hours, Bruce’s treacherous brain has provided an unending loop of the Justice League meeting Clark had, inexplicably, taken upon himself to schedule at 11 AM. Something about being needed at the Daily Planet at noon, Bruce hadn’t cared to listen closely. What he does remember, more clearly than he wants to, is that Zatanna had kept throwing glances his way.

That’s not-- much. That’s _nothing_.

Bruce knows she’s got an upcoming show in Gotham and can’t, in all honesty, say why he’d evaded her after the meeting, that special brand of desperation he often reserves for death-defying acts alone clawing up his throat. _After _is when the pieces had started falling in -- or out -- of place.

_Man, remember that one time Zatanna brought Constantine to a meeting?_ Hal had asked, easy because everything’s _easy _to him, secure in his own existence like Bruce’s never learned to be. Hal’s all laughs and smiles, halfway through an anecdote about memory blanks and lingering shame when Bruce finds it in himself to say that no, he doesn’t remember. Wisely, he pretends the room doesn’t spin when the words make it out.

So, when Hal reaches the belated realisation that Bruce hadn’t, in fact, been present at all that day, Bruce’s salvation comes in the form of the reputation he’s spent so long building up. No one says a thing about Batman’s grunted acknowledgement and too-swift exit.

It’d been _enough_.

Enough to dig up too much of what Bruce’s fought so hard to keep buried, at any rate.

And exactly none of that resembles anything that can be translated into the appropriate words. They don’t _do _this. Comforts in the night rarely mean anything other than heated touches.

“Bruce, if you wanna talk…” Joker trails off, unsure. He’s whispering, oddly considerate for his standards but then again, they _are _on the same floor as the boys. All the same, the walls are too thick for that necessity to arise, Bruce thinks-- _hopes_. They’ve certainly been working under that assumption for a while now.

“Do you ever worry about forgetting?”

The words weigh too much. Joker blinks up at him, surprised, and Bruce feels cold all over, something in him sinking down.

How’d Joker ever make it past ACE Chemicals? That’s the unspoken question here. Bruce had never made it out of the alley. The past washes over him in waves. Too often, memory’s been all he’d had. What _do _you do when there’s nothing to cling to? He swallows with some difficulty, can’t bear the faint glint of Joker’s eyes in the dark just now.

Joker nods, frowning like he’s thinking hard about it. _Real _hard, he’d say.

“Only during the _really _good moments,” Joker agrees. There’s an aborted movement there, a faint flinch like he’d planned on sitting up then thought better of it. Bruce catalogues it all without thinking because that’s what Batman does, apparently. Force of habit, at 2 AM, in bed with his-- _partner_. “Like, last week when you took the boys to that movie and Timmy said he wanted me to come too? That was good, I wouldn’t wanna forget _that_.”

He doesn’t ask _why_, which is a testimonial to both how well he knows Bruce _and _Joker’s always awe-inspiring ability to fill any and all silences.

And no, Bruce wouldn’t like to forget that either. He smiles despite himself.

“So, yeah, sometimes,” Joker continues after a beat, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. He’d passed out in the same clothes he’s been wearing for a week straight now, which isn’t all that rare. “Sometimes, I think I’m gonna wake up and it’s gonna be that first day all over again.” His voice cracks on _again_, anxiety spilling over. Bruce’s heart clenches and it’s that same open wound that’s never not reminded him _he_ did this.

“I’m sorry,” he says, automatically.

It occurs to Bruce, distantly, that he’s not likely to ever get that much.

Joker shakes his head, grinning wide like he can’t help it. “Hey, I got a pretty good deal outta the whole thing, my own manor and everything,” he laughs, not quite meeting Bruce’s eyes.

Unthinking, Bruce reaches out and cradles Joker’s face, thumb stroking one sharp cheekbone. “You know what the JLA used to do to, um, criminals, right?” That’s the point of no return. The _look _Zatanna had given him that morning persists. It’s all gonna keep going until Bruce finds a way to stop it.

“The Doc Light thing?” Joker hesitates, pulls back just enough. “Rumours, I guess. I’m not even sure if I’ve even _met _him. Don’t think he’d like me much.”

“But you know about the--”

“Yeah.”

Neither says it. It’s this absence that curls around Bruce’s throat, makes it hard to breathe.

“I think--” There’s no doubt, no second-guessing. He knows. He _knows_. “They did the same thing to me. That same night, after-- They thought I wouldn’t approve of what they did to Light. I didn’t. I _don’t_, justice would’ve been a life behind bars but they didn’t-- they didn’t have to--”

He doesn’t break down, doesn’t have to when Joker’s eyes are so very wide and if that’s pity, then Bruce’s already had a lifetime of it. That nebulous _they _is easy, he doesn’t have to drag in the people he might’ve once been meant to call friends. Ray, Dinah, Ollie, Carter, Barry and Zatanna. They never trusted _him _and that, somehow, stings worse than the rest of it.

“You got mindwiped,” Joker whispers.

And Bruce? Bruce can’t say a thing. The confession’s already taken too much from him. It’s nights like this that the fear creeps in, the lie he’s told himself for so long. The league would never do that to one of their own, he’s imagined it, he’s being paranoid again, like every other time, he’s--

He’s _there _again, clutching that note after Jack Drake’s funeral, feeling sick to his stomach with the hunger of memories he might’ve never had.

“You don’t need their approval, Bruce.”

Joker’s still being quiet, too subdued to be anything but out of step with himself, his own arms wrapped around his skinny form -- unconsciously, maybe. The same could be said about the faint rocking motion he’s fallen into. Whatever Bruce’s caused, he hadn’t meant to. He never means to.

“You don’t need their approval,” he repeats. “You’re right. Whatever Light did that night, you’re _right_. You know that. Tell me you know that. I-I’ve still got kryptonite! Lots and lots of it, from that one time we were in Metropolis and Lex-- Point is I’ve got kryptonite. I’m gonna get all of ‘em. I could. Ha, I _really _could!” With that, Joker sits up so abruptly he nearly slides right out of bed, frenzied with some recently discovered sense of injustice. “No one deserves that. Not even us.”

_Us_.

Somewhere along the line, Bruce thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe.

He’d never counted on belief.

That’s why he’s here, isn’t it? The viscerally intimate knowledge of his rogues and the abyss stretching between him and the league. A fundamental disconnect, never too far despite Bruce’s best intentions. Too much sympathy, too little trust. He can’t tell what he’d expected. The kid in the alley remains frozen in the dark and the boy who’d meant to bleed out on the bathroom floor knows it’s nothing a _hero _would do.

“I think it happened again,” Bruce says and it’s not too hard, still tastes like a punch to the face. “This morning when I-- The meeting, I can’t remember the whole meeting but Zatanna looked at me and Hal said something about not remembering last night and--”

Bruce doesn’t ramble.

He doesn’t panic either, rising crescendo here aside, nearly gasping, the universe collapsing in on itself.

And then, it all comes to a stuttering stop, the cold hands cupping his face registering only belatedly. Bruce fights hard to focus on that alone. Skeletal fingers and bleached skin and comfort that shouldn’t come but does anyway. Joker must say his name, Bruce can’t hear beyond the rush of blood in his ears.

“Who drove the boys to school today?” Joker asks and, for the longest time, it seems like nothing more than his specific brand of non sequitur.

Bruce, surprised he’s heard the question in the first place, doesn’t have to think twice.

“Dick.”

“You said someone was missing from today’s meeting. Who was it?”

“Arthur.”

If Joker’s smile is a little too sharp, neither says a word.

“Which boxers am I wearing?”

“How would I--” No, he _does _know, they’d had the rare treat of getting ready for the day together this morning. “The ones I hate? With the Superman logo?”

“It didn’t happen again, Bruce.” Joker’s sort of bouncing in place and, for this moment alone, his enthusiasm is contagious. Bruce is smiling a dopey little smile without quite knowing why, feeling a bit like he’s not in on the joke. “It didn’t happen again! Don’t you get it? You remember everything, Bruce. Everything from this morning. Nothing happened! It’s gotta mean nothing happened, right?”

_Oh_.

“Oh,” Bruce says. The panic doesn’t recede, not all at once, but it’s a start. More than he could’ve asked for. He pulls Joker -- who proceeds to choke on a half-stifled giggle -- on top of him, just like that, and sort of freezes there, hands on skinny hips. “Thank you.” It feels like the sort of thing he doesn’t say nearly enough.

“I know you’re not gonna quit the league.”

With that, Joker presses a kiss to Bruce’s forehead. He sounds distantly resigned, as if he knows Bruce too well for his own good and then some.

“I can’t let this happen to anyone else,” Bruce admits.

“Yeah.” Another kiss. “But, you know, if you ever need some kryptonite, just say the word.”

“I will.”

Oddly enough, Bruce finds that he means it, grateful for the offer, relieved that Joker’s _here _and endlessly patient, willing to put up with the rotting mess of paranoia that’s followed him around for so long, that might have been there long before the JLA and the Bat and even the alley. If he’s always been destined for this, then it can’t be all bad, not when he gets Joker.

“Still wanna sleep?” Bruce asks, just in case. He’s tired himself out, wrung out like he’s been crying.

Joker laughs and nods, rolls off him in one simple gesture then spends too long tangled up in the sheets. It’s _so _him. “Hey, turn around,” he says, eventually, firmly under the covers, and Bruce does, more trusting than he’s ever known himself to be. Joker draws him close, the length of his body pressed against Bruce’s, holding him tight and somewhat clumsy, a mirror image of their usual nighttime patterns.

And, all safe and snug, Bruce lets himself be held. Simple as that.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ufonaut!


End file.
